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Britain has a housing crisis, not just in terms of a shortage of homes and sky-high prices, but in terms of the poor state of existing homes. Four in ten British homes don’t meet the basic criteria to secure occupants’ well-being, according to a recent survey.

Researchers at Swansea University have looked into individual measures to improve housing and their effects on the people living in them. In New Zealand, for example – which has a similar climate to the UK – reduced asthma wheeze and fewer visits to the doctor were reported by people who had insulation improvements to their homes. In another New Zealand study, low-income tenants whose homes had fall-reduction modifications, led to reduced falls as intended.

In the UK, though specific initiatives like these have been assessed, no one has looked at the effect that whole-home improvement can have on health, until now. This latest research is the first to investigate how the improvement of a whole home can benefit health – specifically using hospital admissions as a measure.

For the study, researchers worked with residents living in 9,256 council properties in Carmarthenshire, South Wales, between 2009 and 2014.